On August 3, 2026, U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon sent an open letter to every university president and governing board in the country, titled A National Call to Action to University Presidents and Governing Boards. It asks each institution to publish, by the end of 2026, a public statement of principle addressing seven named areas — one of which is safeguarding research from “malign foreign influence,” and another of which is “prioritizing American interests.” For research offices, that means two of the seven items sit squarely inside territory research security officers, export-control staff and grants offices already work in daily — even though the letter itself creates no new legal duty.
What the letter actually does — and does not do
Unlike the White House’s failed autumn-2025 “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” which offered nine named universities (MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Virginia, the University of Arizona, the University of Texas at Austin, USC, Vanderbilt, Dartmouth and Brown) preferential federal funding treatment in exchange for specific policy commitments — and which none of the nine agreed to sign — the McMahon letter is deliberately looser. According to the Department of Education’s own press release and contemporaneous law-firm client alerts, the letter contains no new regulatory mandate, does not condition federal funding on participation, and sets no enforcement mechanism or stated penalty for institutions that decline to respond. It is addressed to every postsecondary institution, not a shortlist, and explicitly invites each institution to answer the seven questions in its own words rather than adopt a single federal template.
That combination — broad reach, specific and pointed subject list, zero formal enforcement — is the operative fact for research offices. There is nothing here to file, certify or submit to the Department. The exposure is reputational and political, not regulatory: what an institution says (or conspicuously does not say) about foreign research influence and “American interests” by year-end will be read, quoted and compared against peer institutions’ statements, in a policy environment where research security has already been a live enforcement area under NSPM-33 implementation, agency-specific disclosure rules and export-control cases.
The seven areas, and which ones touch the research enterprise
The letter organizes its request around seven themes. Two are directly research-facing; the rest bear on research offices only indirectly, mainly where admissions, speech-on-campus or AI-related policy questions intersect with federally funded research activity.
| Area | Touches research directly? | What it’s actually asking |
|---|---|---|
| Transparency and merit in admissions | No | Public disclosure of admissions criteria and how merit is weighed |
| Free speech and open inquiry | Indirect | Protecting expression and preventing disruption of academic activity, including on-campus research and speaker events |
| Intellectual pluralism and academic vitality | Indirect | Viewpoint diversity in hiring, evaluation and curriculum across departments, including research faculty |
| Affordability, value and student outcomes | No | Cost containment and loan-repayment capacity of graduates |
| Academic standards and rigor in the age of AI | Indirect | Grade integrity and academic-standards questions raised by generative AI, mainly a teaching-side issue |
| Safeguarding research integrity from malign foreign influence | Yes | Institutional commitments on foreign talent-recruitment programs, undisclosed foreign funding and research-security screening |
| Prioritizing American interests | Yes | Aligning research and workforce-development activity with national economic and security priorities |
Both research-facing items track subject matter research offices already have working infrastructure for: the undue foreign influence concept used across NIH, NSF and DOE disclosure policy; the malign foreign talent recruitment program restrictions written into recent appropriations acts and agency terms of award; and the broader research security function that many institutions have already stood up, in some cases under a named research security officer role. The letter does not introduce new disclosure obligations on top of these — it asks institutions to say, publicly, that they take the existing ones seriously.
What research offices should actually do with this
- Route the letter to the right owner early. Because the ask spans admissions, free speech, AI policy and research security, no single office can draft the response alone. Research security or research integrity leadership should own the two research-facing paragraphs and coordinate with general counsel and the provost’s office on the rest, rather than let the whole statement default to a communications-office exercise that glosses over specifics a funder or auditor might later read literally.
- Say only what is already true and documented. A public statement that overstates an institution’s research-security posture creates exposure it didn’t have before — if the statement claims screening or disclosure practices beyond what the institution’s actual research security program does, that gap becomes a liability the moment it’s tested, whether by a journalist, a peer institution’s comparison, or a future funder review.
- Treat it as a prompt to close real gaps, not just to write a paragraph. If an institution’s foreign-funding disclosure process, conflict-of-interest screening for international collaborations, or export-control review for sensitive research areas has known weaknesses, this is a natural forcing function to fix them before publishing a statement that speaks to them.
- Expect comparison, not grading. Because there is no submission portal or federal review, the practical audience for these statements is peer institutions, state legislators, and media covering higher-education policy — not a Department reviewer with a checklist. Track how peer institutions in the same state or athletic conference are framing their research-security language, since that is the comparison set that will actually get used.
How this differs from the 2025 Compact
The contrast with the Compact for Academic Excellence is instructive for what it signals about the Department’s near-term approach. The Compact was narrow (nine invited institutions), contractual in structure, and tied to funding advantages and penalties; every one of the nine declined, citing concerns that conditioning research funding on policy commitments would undermine merit-based review. The August 2026 letter reverses each of those design choices: it is universal rather than selective, non-binding rather than contractual, and carries no funding lever at all. Whether that changes the response rate remains to be seen — as of this writing, no institution has published a formal, dated response to the August letter specifically, though several university leaders have offered general commentary in the days since it was issued.
Frequently asked questions
Is the McMahon letter legally binding on universities?
No. Per the Department of Education’s own release and independent law-firm summaries, the letter carries no new regulatory mandate and does not condition federal funding on a response. It is a request for a public statement, not a compliance filing.
Does declining to publish a statement put federal funding at risk?
The letter as issued states no such condition. That does not eliminate all risk — a conspicuous non-response in a politically salient area like foreign research influence carries reputational exposure — but there is no stated funding or enforcement consequence tied to non-participation.
What is the deadline?
The Department has asked institutions to publish their statements before the end of 2026.
Does this letter create new foreign-influence disclosure requirements?
No. It asks institutions to publicly affirm commitments in this area; it does not add to the existing federal disclosure requirements already in place under agency-specific policy (NIH, NSF, DOE and others) and appropriations-act restrictions on malign foreign talent recruitment program participation.
How is this different from the 2025 “Compact for Academic Excellence”?
The 2025 Compact was offered to nine named universities, was structured as a funding-linked agreement, and was rejected by all nine. The 2026 letter is addressed to every institution, sets no funding condition, and specifies no enforcement mechanism.
Sources: U.S. Department of Education press release, “U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon Issues National Call to Action to University Presidents and Governing Boards” (ed.gov, August 2026); Foley Hoag LLP client alert, “Education Secretary McMahon’s ‘National Call to Action’ to University Presidents and Governing Boards: What Institutions Need to Know” (August 2026); reporting on the 2025 Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, including Inside Higher Ed and AAUP correspondence with the Department, October 2025.
